Yes, there is crying in football. The love that makes the Broncos a family is the same love that made the first day without Pat Bowlen hurt so badly tears were worn like a badge of honor.

Mr. B has left the building.

The cruel reality of Alzheimer's disease ushered the 70-year-old Bowlen out the door before anybody at Dove Valley headquarters was ready to say goodbye.

"There is finality to it," Broncos president Joe Ellis told me Wednesday. As Ellis talked, his eyes unabashedly filled with emotion and glistened with fondness for a man who did more than own the Broncos for three decades. Bowlen quietly demanded excellence all 365 days of every year.

As the harsh realization of his words caught in his throat, Ellis struggled to add: "Mr. Bowlen won't be in the building today. And I don't think he will be walking in the door tomorrow. It's brutal."

During his NFL career, John Elway was sacked more than 500 times. Three losses in the Super Bowl stung. But here is what caused the old quarterback to exhale slowly, wipe his nose and bite a tongue to hold back tears:

"This place will never be the same," said Elway, paying respect to Mr. B on the summer afternoon when the office of the owner was empty and the franchise felt a hole in its heart.

Before the Broncos could open training camp and get down to the task of building a Super Bowl dream, there was a much tougher chore. They buried the end of an era.

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"What's beautiful about the Broncos is they have a blueprint. It was created by Pat Bowlen long before I got here, and will be here long after I'm gone. Not every NFL team gets that lucky. The Pittsburgh Steelers have a philosophy thanks to the Rooney family. The New York Giants might not always win, but they have a vision for success created by the Mara family. And the Broncos are Pat Bowlen," said coach John Fox, hired in 2011 after Bowlen admitted his mistake of Josh McDaniels rather than allowing pride get in the way of doing what was best for the franchise.

Broncos president and CEO Joe Ellis pauses Wednesday while discussing owner Pat Bowlen's relinquishing control of the team. (John Leyba, The Denver Post)

The curse of Alzheimer's disease is the body stays alive while the personality inside slowly fades away. Against any foe or odds, Bowlen won't give up without a tough fight.

But he's a walking ghost of the man affectionately called Mr. B, and that's why the family business weeps.

"This closes down the chapter of what Pat Bowlen did so well. Life has been sucked out of him. It's unfair."

The decision for Bowlen to step away from the family business in order to do right by the Broncos was as brave and selfless as it was difficult.

There was no exit conversation, ripe with made-for-the-movies melodrama. Instead, what Ellis revealed with a peak behind the curtain at the toughest call of Bowlen's career was more true to the messy realities of growing old.

It was a series of talks during the course of several months among Bowlen, his family and team executives that slowly pulled together the loose strings of what needed to be done.

"There were some pretty emotional conversations about his frustrations with where his health was going," Ellis said. "Those conversations were gut-wrenching and sad. He had those same conversations with his children and his siblings and his wife. Those are memories a family never forgets. They're not the best memories. But they're part of what makes a family."

Rampaging through the upcoming NFL regular season, returning to the Super Bowl and winning it one more time for Mr. B sounds like a plot perfect for a Hollywood script. But, truth be known, it would not do justice to the blueprint of the Bowlen family business.

"We want to do it every season," Elway said.

The boss has left the building, but you can bet the mantra of Mr. B will ring long and loud from in the locker room, on the practice field and throughout a stadium awash in orange on NFL Sundays.

"If you ain't winning," Bowlen declared again and again during the course of three decades, "the people ain't coming."

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